I was a rock and roll child bride

Pawtucket, Rhode Island, 2011:

I’m 29, sitting on the couch in the apartment in which I still live. It’s dark, only one lamp lit, the whole room tinged red. A naked singer-songwriter, tall and thin like a giraffe and plastered in chicken-scratch tattoos, walks by on his way to the kitchen.

“You’re an asshole,” he says. “You just want someone who isn’t an asshole, but you’re never going to find one. I’m the best asshole you’re gonna get.”

I don’t say anything. He fries up something on the stove. I don’t remember what.